Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2013
See how Fortune has raised you high, and commanded you to occupy a place of great honour; so, Livia, bear up that load. You draw our eyes and ears to you, we notice all your actions, and the word of a princeps, once spoken, cannot be concealed. Stay upright, rise above your woes, keep your spirit unbroken – in so far as you can. Our search for models of virtue, certainly, will be better when you take on the rôle of first lady (Romana princeps).
These words were written by a Roman eques just after he had taken part in the funeral of Livia's son Drusus in 9 B.C.; they derive from a poem known conventionally as the Epicedion Drusi or Consolatio ad Liviam. Drusus, consul in that year, had died of an illness on campaign east of the Rhine; for his successes against the Germans he had been about to receive various honours at Rome, including a triumph. Among these one of the more outstanding was the banquet for the principal women of the city which his mother and step-sister (Julia, Augustus' daughter by Livia) were to give in his honour; a celebration which they had previously organized for Drusus' brother Tiberius, to commemorate the pacification of Pannonia.
3. For the authenticity of the Consolatio, once doubted, see the edition of Baehrens, E., Poetae Latini Minores vol I, (1879) 97–101Google Scholar; for the equestrian rank of its author, Consolatio 202, adsumus omnis eques. For the date and composition of the Consolatio, with recent bibliography, Richmond, John, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, ed. Temporini, Hildegard, 31, 4 (1981), 2768–2783Google Scholar. He argues for a date between A.D. 12 and A.D. 37, mainly on literary grounds which I am not qualified to assess; but the terminus post quem of the dedication of the temple of Castor by Tiberius in A.D. 6 will not stand, since the rebuilding in honour of his relationship with Drusus, like that of the Temple of Concord, was planned already in at least 7 B.C. If the piece is not Augustan, a Claudian date is clearly most appropriate historically; the issue does not greatly affect the argument of this article.
4. Cassius Dio 55. 2. 4 . For the preparation for triumphs by women see also Ovid, Pont. 3.4.95 f.; Cassius Dio 55.8.2.
5. Consolatio 27-8, funera pro sacris tibi sunt ducenda triumphis/et tumulo Drusum pro Iouis arce manet.
6. Cf. Consolatio 66-74, esp. 71-2 iactura nouissima Drusus/a magno lacrimas Caesare quartus habet. The theme is elaborated by Seneca, , Marc. 2–4Google Scholar.
7. For the phrase princeps femina, cf. Ovid, Pont. 3.1.125.
8. Suetonius, Gaius, 23.2.
9. On the stola RE 4A (1932) 58-62, and cf. Festus p. 112 L matronas appellabant fere quibus stolas habendi ius erat. Examples of the phrase ‘stolata femina’: CIL III 5225, 5283, 5293, 6155Google Scholar.
10. Cassius Dio 57. 12. ; and he goes on to allege .
12. For the early involvement of women in Roman religion, Gagé, J., Matronalia (1963)Google Scholar. An important rôle-model was of course the Virgines Vestales, on whom see Beard, Mary, JRS 70 (1980) 12–27Google Scholar. Their sacral, public, rôle ensured that they could move outside the normal female world. For Livia's position in relation to them Cassius Dio 60.5; 59.3.4; Suetonius, Gaius 15.2; see also Flory, Boudreau, Porticus Liviae, 320–1Google Scholar and below, pp. 84-5 with nn. 32 and 40. Official grief: the first consuls, Livy 2.7.4 cf 2.16.7; Sulla, Granius Licinianus 33.4; Caesar, , Suetonius, DJ 84, 4Google Scholar.
13. Livy 5.25.8.
14. For Claudia see Cicero, , Har. resp. 27Google Scholar; Diodorus Siculus 34.33.2, both accounts involving matronae alongside the men of the city. Livy 29.14.12 has a rather different version. The early accounts were contradicted by Diodorus' source, Valerius Antias, who substituted a Valeria for Claudia as castissima matronarum; see Wiseman, T. P., Clio's cosmetics (1979) 94-9, 115–6Google Scholar. Cornelia, , RE 4 (1901) 1592–5Google Scholar.
15. Appian, BC 4.5.32-4; Valerius Maximus, 8.3.3.
16. Fulvia, , RE 7 (1912), 281–4Google Scholar. Her remarkable career certainly involved acting politically and adopting male roles, but whereas Livia was advanced through the barriers gradually by more or less legal paths, Fulvia, in more troubled times, simply ignored them. The comparison is instructive.
17. Asconius, , Mil. 38Google Scholar.
18. Lydus, De mens. 4.29.
19. Heliogabalus, 4.1-4. On the subject see now Talbert, R. J. A., The senate of imperial Rome (1985) 160–1Google Scholar, cf. 493-4.
20. Digest 1.9.12 pr.
21. Digest 1.9.1 and 8.
22. Aurelian 49.6.
23. Heliogabalus 4.4.
24. Hay, Stuart, The amazing Emperor Heliogabalus (1911) 122–3Google Scholar.
25. Teufer, J., Zur Geschichte der Frauenemanzipation in alten Rom, eine Studie zur Livius 34, 1–8 (1913)Google Scholar.
26. Straub, Johannes S., ‘Senaculum, id est mulierum senatus’, Bonner Historia-Augusta-Colloquium 3 (1964–1965) 1966, 221–40Google Scholar.
27. Livy 34, 1-7.
28. Rawson, Elizabeth, ‘The Lex Iulia Theatralis’ PBSR 55 (1987) forthcomingGoogle Scholar. See also, for special privileges in the theatre for Livia, n.45 below. For the law in action in a context which shows the parallelism between the ordo matronarum and the ordo equester in Julio-Claudian society, Suetonius, Gaius 26.4 on a disaster in the theatre when Caligula attempted to use club bearers to clear the crowds who were taking up their seats in the middle of the night: simili superbia uiolentiaque ceteros tractauit ordines … elisi per eum tumultum uiginti amplius equites R. totidem matronae, super innumeram turbam ceteram’.
29. Virgil, Aen. 11. 477-85; the Homeric model gives all the ritual action apart from the lament and the stretching out of hands to the priestess of Athene, Theano (Iliad 6. 297-311). Aeneas' shield: Aen. 8. 663-6 hic exsultantis Salios nudosque Lupercos/lanigerosque apices et lapsa ancilia caelo/extuderat, castae ducebant sacra per urbem/pilentis matres in mollibus. Cf. the propitiation of Juno Regina by the matronae in Tacitus, Ann. 15.44.
30. CIL VI 32323, 1.123 f, cf. the gathering on the Capitol, 1.707-80.
31. Ovid, Tristia 4.2.11-14, in a passage running through all levels of Roman society.
32. Pliny, Ep. 7.19.1-2, a munus for the matronae organized ex auctoritate pontificum. Cf. Ovid, Pont. 4.13.29 esse pudicarum te Vestam, Livia, matrum.
33. Suetonius (Galba 5.1, which may have influenced the Historia Augusta) reports a quarrel at the conuentus matronarum between Agrippina and Domitia Lepida; Claudius' reception of an embassy of Alexandrian Jews ‘while he was with Agrippina and the matronae’ is mentioned in a papyrus, P. Berol. 511.2. Seneca, Suas. 2.21 portrays a woman arguing apud matronas over the custody of children. A real setting for such a conuentus on the Quirinal is suggested not only by the passage in the Life of Heliogabalus but by the findspot beneath the end of the hill of the dedication of Sabina to the matronae, CIL VI 997, and by the long associations of the matronae of Rome with their Sabine predecessors (note the empress' name). See, for one example, Columella, 12, pr. occiderit uetus ille matrumfamiliarum mos Sabinarum atque Romanarum. The matronae were under the particular protection of Iuno Curitis: Festus s.v. caelibari hasta, p. 55 L. Further epigraphic evidence for them: CIL VI 31075, a feriale which refers to matronae cum carpentis and 32327, regulations as to which incenses they are to use.
34. Jerome, adv. Jov. I 47 (PL 23, 289 B) inde per noctes totas garrulae conquaestiones: ‘ilia ornatior procedit in publicum, haec honoratur ab omnibus, ego in conuentu feminarum misella despicior.’ Cf. Ep. 43.3.3 matronarum cotidie visitetur senatus.
35. CIL XIV 2120 epulum duplum; cf. 2110, perhaps not unconnected with the important local cult of Iuno Sospita.
36. CIL XI, 1421, 1.24.
37. IG XIV 760.
38. CIL X 688.
39. I know of no general study of these priestesses and their branch of the imperial cult; it was particularly well developed in Spain: see Mackie, Nicola, Local administration in Roman Spain A.D. 14–212 (1983) 62-4, 85–6Google Scholar, and ead. 42 for a comparison of these posts with the sevirate as a means of incorporating marginal social groups in municipal life – and costs. For a brief account of the evidence, Grether, , Livia and the imperial cult, 249–50Google Scholar.
40. Gaius, I. 145 tantum enim et lege Iulia et Papia Poppaea iure liberorum a tutela liberantur feminae … exceptis uirginibus Vestalibus quas etiam ueteres … liberas esse uoluerunt.
41. Cassius Dio 49.38.1 . The context dates the grant to the last months of 35.
42. Livia granted the ius trium liberorum: Cassius Dio 55.2.5 cf. above, p. 78.
43. Cassius Dio 56.10.2.
44. Ibid..
45. Cassius Dio 60.22.2 . The carpentum was one of the commemorative honours appointed by Caligula for his mother: Suetonius, Cal. 15.1 and by Claudius for his, Suetonius, Claudius 11.2. The grant to Livia may date to Livia's illness of A.D. 22, when the carpentum first appears on coins: Grether p. 237.
46. For attacks on the luxury of vehicles, and transportation as a status symbol, Pliny, HN 34.17, cf. 33.49. For Cato's attack on these in his censorship in a speech De uestitu et uehiculis, Malcovati, , ORF, 93Google Scholar with refs.; also Suetonius, , Claud. 16Google Scholar; Martial 3.72; and SHA Heliogabalus 29.1 – his uehicula were gemmata or aurata, since he despised the ordinary categories of silver, ivory or bronze. The SHA believes in this regimented calibration of décor; cf. Heliog. 4.4 for sellae and Alex. Sev. 43.1, Aurel. 46.3 for uehicula in general.
47. Ovid, Fasti 1. 619 nam prius Ausonias matres carpenta uehebant. The carpentum in Livy is the vehicle of the formidable womenfolk of the kings, Tanaquil and Tullia: 1.34.8; 48.5, 7. Their associations were cultic, as is best shown by their prominence alongside the Luperci and the Salii on the Shield of Aeneas (Aeneid 8.666) castae ducebant sacra per urbem/pilentis matres in mollibus. The sacra long remained the principal occasion for their use: Livy, 5.25.9, cf. above, p. 81, for the matronae and the Gallic sack.
48. Careful control of the lectica: Suetonius, DJ 43 (use restricted by status age and calendar); Claud. 28 (use granted as great honour to the freedman Harpocras); Dom. 8 (probrosae feminae denied use). It may be guessed that the regulations about traffic in Rome and other cities are concerned with this as well as with utilitarian issues. The lectica and its equipment was a very intimate part of the belongings of the materfamilias: Digest 32.1.49, pr. The wider context is, of course, the various restrictions on movement between one locality and another and the tendency in Roman regulations to specify boundaries very carefully.
49. For the agmen mulierum see Gagé, , Matronalia 111 fGoogle Scholar.
50. E.g. Consolatio 33 obuia progrediar felixque per oppida dicar.
51. For the funeral of Drusus, , Consolatio 199 f.Google Scholar; cf. Cassius Dio 55.2.1. For that of Augustus, Suetonius, Aug. 100.2; Cassius Dio 56.31.2. See also Cassius Dio 59.11.2, the funeral of Drusilla. For the illness of A.D. 22, Tacitus Ann. 3.71; the equites sought for their uotum a temple of Fortuna Equestris and settled eventually on one with that designation at Antium.
52. Julia: Tacitus, Ann. 4.71.5; Suetonius, Claud. 41.2 (Antonia and Livia dissuade Claudius from writing political history); Claud. 4 (Augustus to Livia on the subject of Claudius). We note Tiberius, about to depart for Rhodes, reading his will to Augustus and Livia (Cassius Dio 55.9.8).
53. Cinna Magnus: Cassius Dio 55.14-22. Compare the Hortensia episode (p. 81), and the way in which the plebs takes the side of the women, a pattern repeated in Julio-Claudian times, and probably reciprocated (cf.n.83). Ovid: the most important passage is Ex Ponto 3. 1 in which the exile asks his wife to intercede with Livia on his behalf – Caesaris at coniux ore precanda tuo (114). The comitas of Livia is not much in evidence: sentiat illa te maiestatem pertimuisse suam (155-6). See Syme, R., History in Ovid (1978) 44–5Google Scholar, with other, more casual, allusions.
54. Livia's philanthropic activities: Cassius Dio 57.16.2 (fire victims in A.D. 16); 58.2.3 (payment of dowries). Compare Flory, Boudreau, Porticus Liviae, 319Google Scholar.
55. Patronage of allied cities: the key text is the subscript of Augustus to Samos preserved at Aphrodisias (Reynolds, Joyce, Aphrodisias and Rome (1982) Doc. 13 and pp. 104–6Google Scholar) . Compare Cassius Dio 54.7.2, Augustus' favour to Sparta because of its services to Livia. Livia as Grether, , Livia and the imperial cult, at 231Google Scholar.
56. Client princes connected with Livia: Josephus, AJ 17.10. Cleopatra: Cassius Dio 51.13.3.
57. Suetonius, Aug. 89 sermones cum singulis atque etiam cum Livia sua grauiores non nisi scriptos et e libello habebat, ne plus minus loqueretur ex tempore.
58. CIL VI 883Google Scholar; see now Gigli, Stefania Quilici, ‘Il tempio della Fortuna Muliebris’, MEFRA 93 (1981) 2, 547–563CrossRefGoogle Scholar. With the nomenclature we may compare the extraordinary proposal that Tiberius should take Livia's nomen after A.D. 14: Cassius Dio 57.12.4, .
59. Dionysius of Halicarnassus 8.56; Plutarch, , Coriolanus 57Google Scholar, with Valerius Maximus, 1.8.4 cf. 5.2.1. Livy 2.40.11-12 ‘non inuiderunt laude sua mulieribus uiri Romani….
60. Gagé, , Matronalia, 48–63Google Scholar.
61. Bona Dea: Ovid, Fasti 5.157-8, remarking that Livia was consciously imitating her husband's building activities. Pudicitia: Palmer, R. E. A., RSA 4 (1974) 140Google Scholar.
62. The case is made by Flory, Boudreau, Porticus Liviae, at 313–7Google Scholar.
63. Cassius Dio 56.46.3 , stressing the partnership of Livia and Tiberius in action. Pliny, HN 12.94 attributes construction of the temple solely to Livia.
64. Boudreau Flory, esp. 324-30. This article should be consulted for the Porticus Liviae and its associations, and clears up many of the problems associated with it. For the macellum see (for the sources) Platner and Ashby, Topogr. Dictionary, s.v.; the best discussion is that of De Ruyt, Claire, Macellum – marché alimentaire des romains (1984) 166Google Scholar. It is perhaps significant that a building devoted to the provision of the wherewithal for household management and daily life should have been dedicated by the materfamilias of the domus Caesarum.
65. Although Dio (54.23.6; cf. 55.8.2 and n.64) says it does not remotely do justice to Livia's involvement to say with Pomeroy, Sarah, Goddesses, whores, wives and slaves (1975) 184Google Scholar just that ‘Augustus named the Porticus Liviae and the Macellum Liviae in honour of his wife’. Even other women in the imperial circle took to building: note Agrippa's sister Polla decorating the of the Campus Martius and building (Cassius Dio 55.8.3 [7 B.C.] ) a great porticus in the same part of the city; and cf. the position of Octavia and the mysterious Basilica Antoniarum Duarum (Platner - Ashby s.v.).
66. Suetonius, Gaius 7.7; Galba 18.
67. Platner – Ashby, s.v. Venus Victrix, citing the evidence from the calendars.
68. Platner – Ashby, s.v. Venus Erycina for a different identification; but this temple's existence in even the late Republic is not documented.
69. See, for example, Ann. 1.32; Ollendorff 919-20 suggesting that tension succeeded family amity, an unnecessary resolution of the paradox.
70. Cassius Dio 48.52.4 ; cf. also Pliny, HN 15.30 and Suetonius, , Galba 1Google Scholar.
71. Cassius Dio 56.46.2 .
72. Cassius Dio 56.46.5 and 57.12.5.
73. Cassius Dio 56.47.1.
74. Cassius Dio 56.46.2 .
75. Tacitus, Ann. 3.64; Praenestini, Fasti in Degrassi, A. ed., Inscriptions Italiae XIII, 2 (1963), p. 131Google Scholar.
76. CIL XI 3303Google Scholar = ILS 154 = Ehrenberg, /Jones, , Docs. 101Google Scholar.
77. Natali Augustae mulsum et crustlum mulieribus uicanis ad Bonam Deam pecunia nostra dedimus (from the inscription cited above, n. 76). The choice of site receives extra appropriateness from Livia's involvement with the restoration of the principal temple of this goddess in Rome, above p. 88 and n. 61. The text of the inscription should not be interpreted (pace Boudreau Flory 320) as referring to a uicus ad Bonam Deam, but to the site of the banquet.
78. CIL VI 2028c,1.2Google Scholar; Tactius, Ann. 6.5. Dedication of the Ara Pacis: Augustan calendars, references in Platner – Ashby s.v. The presence of Livia in the decoration is of course noteworthy. For her official iconography, Gross, W. H., Untersuchungen zur Livia-Ikonographie, Abh. Göttingen (1962)Google Scholar.
79. IGRR IV 982–3Google Scholar.
80. Suetonius, , Tiberius 5Google Scholar; Gaius 23.2, and Wiseman, T. P., Historia 14 (1965) 333–4Google Scholar.
81. CIL II 2038Google Scholar (Anticaria, Baetica) = Ehrenberg, /Jones, , Docs. 123Google Scholar, cf. 124.
82. Fasti Verulani, Jan. 17th feriae ex s.c. quod eo die Augusta nupsit diuo Augusta: Degrassi, , Insc. Ital., 161Google Scholar. Deification: CIL VI 2032Google Scholar. This was also the day chosen for the dedication of the Ara Numinis Augusti in A.D.5 or 9: Taylor, L. R., ‘Tiberius' Ovatio and the Ara Numinis Augusti’, AJPh 58 (1937) 185–193Google Scholar.
83. Ceres and abudnance: Grether, , Livia and the imperial cult, 226–7Google Scholar (the altars, dedicated in A.D.7, to Ceres Mater and Ops Augusta) cf. 232. The coins: BMC Augustus – Vitellius, Augustus no. 544, Claudius no. 224. See also ILS 121 (Gaulus). Compare Livia's generosity in the matter of dowries for the needy (Cassius Dio 58.2.3), and that in return some people were hailing her as Mother of the Country: cf. above, p. 87, and Dio 57.12.4. A discussion of‘the Empress Mother’ at Grether, 233 f., relating the idea very closely to Livia's being Tiberius' mother.
84. Grether, 236-7 for iustitia; compare her general rôle outlined above on p. 87. For pax and concordia, Boudreau Flory, Porticus Liviae is now the best guide.
85. Livy, 1.13.
86. Jones, Ehrenberg, Docs. 130Google Scholar (Corinth). For the Ara Pacis, cf. n. 78.
87. Seneca, , De clementia 7. 1–12Google Scholar.
88. Velleius, 2.130.5.
89. Levick, B. M., ‘Concordia at Rome’, Scripta Nummaria Romana: essays presented to Humphrey Sutherland (1978), 217 ff. at 227–8Google Scholar; for its more domestic connotations, Boudreau Flory, 314-22.
90. The amplest collection of evidence for the worship of Livia is Grether, Livia and the Roman imperial cult. Ovid already can say (Fasti 1.536) sic Augusta nouum Iulia numen erit. The delay in deification, like the delay in executing the provisions of her will in A.D. 29 (Tacitus, Ann. 5.1; Cassius Dio 58.2.1-3a cf. 59.1.4 and 2.4) and the ignoring of the excessive honours paid to her, reflects how sensitive and difficult her position in the state had become. Note that Dio (cit.) explicitly says that the arch voted to her was an honour never before offered to a woman.
91. CIL XI 3076Google Scholar (Falerii) = ILS 116. For the matronae and the cult of Iunones of various kinds Gagé, , Matronalia, 63 f.Google Scholar; for the parallelism of genius and iuno, Grether, 225. But Livia was also linked in various ways with the goddess Iuno, and it would be unwise to make too schematic a separation between the forms.
92. Cassius Dio 60.5 cf. 59.11.3 (a similar honour for Drusilla); compare the use of Livia's name in the Egyptian marriage-oath, Grether 242; Boudreau Flory, 319 (Matronae and the deification of Iulia, daughter of Titus, Martial 9.1.7).
93. Tacitus, Ann. 5.1: sanctitate domus priscum ad morem, comis ultra quam antiquis feminis probatum, mater impotens, uxor facilis et cum artibus mariti simulatione filii bene composita.
94. These include lanificium (Suetonius, , Aug. 73Google Scholar). Compare Cassius Dio 54.16, on Augustus' making Livia a model of wifely virtue, and Pliny HN 14.60; 19.92 on her taste for humble wine and therapeutic elecampane salad. It is worth observing that Livia's modesty was protected with Draconian strictness; a chance encounter with some naked men all but resulted in their execution and provided an opportunity for her clementia: Cassius Dio 58.2.4. Standard praises: Velleius, 2.75; 2.130.5.
95. Cassius Dio 48.34.3: the dawning of his love is linked with the first shaving of his beard; cf. Tacitus, Ann. 5.1 exim Caesar cupidine formae aufert marito …. See also Ovid, Pont. 3.1.117 Veneris formam, mores Iunonis.
96. Suetonius, Aug. 99.1 Livia, nostri coniugii memor uiue, ac uale. Ovid's estimate (Tristia 1.161-4) is that Augustus and Livia are the only people worthy of each other: cf. Fasti 1.650 and Consolatio 380.
97. The , Cassius Dio 48.44.3; Livia the procuress, Suetonius, Aug. 71.1; the contest with Terentia, Cassius Dio 54.19.3; the political rewards of chastity, Cassius Dio 58.2.5 … and by ignoring his sexual indiscretions.
98. Marcellus, Cassius Dio 53.33.4; Gaius and Lucius, Tacitus, Ann. 1.3; Cassius Dio 55.10a; 10; Augustus, Tacitus, Ann. 1.5; Cassius Dio 56.30.1-2 with some circumstantial details; Aurelius Victor, epit. 1.27; Agrippa Postumus, Cassius Dio 57.3.6. Cf. Cassius Dio 57.18.5a, Livia's pleasure at the death of Germanicus.
99. Marcellus, , De medicamentis, ed. Helmreich, G. (1889), 35.6Google Scholar, compare Pliny, HN 19.22. For the hostilities within the family Cassius Dio 55.32.2; 57.3.3.
100. The example of Livia: we have observed how Octavia stands closely beside Livia in the early Augustan period (pp. 81, the Hortensia episode, and 85, 35 B.C.), but from her death in 11 B.C. no woman of the domus Caesarum received any honours remotely analogous to those of Livia during the latter's lifetime, though it is possible that the elder Julia would in better circumstances have done so. This will have been one of the problems faced by Agrippina the Elder. She and Antonia received honours like those given to Livia, under Gaius (Suetonius, Gaius 15. 1-2; Cassius Dio 59.3.4 and 11.2) along with Gaius' sisters. Claudius continued the observance of Antonia (Suetonius, Claudius 11.2) and extended those of Livia to deification, as we have seen. Livia's accumulation of rights formed an explicit model in the case of the grants to Drusilla (Cassius Dio 59.11.2) and subsequently to Messalina (60.22.2) and Agrippina the Younger (61.33.12). By that stage these rights had become an institution, like the cuncta principibus solita of the imperial successions themselves, and the tralatician tendency diminished the individual honour of the elements. Repressive and hostile attitudes to women in the Tiberian age, Levick, B. M., JRS 73 (1983) 97–115Google Scholar (the SC from Larinum).